Jeff Hawkins is like most Indiana lawyers – he works in a small practice. Hawkins, incoming president of the Indiana
State Bar Association, will be the first of three consecutive leaders hailing from solo or small law firms.

Most small to mid-sized companies use on average three to five law firms. Larger companies use even more. So, each and every
day you are being compared to your competitors. Knowing how you compare to them in terms of your service and client satisfaction
is good to know. You can get this information in a variety of ways and use it to bring in even more business from the client.

The decision by one Indiana attorney to not wear socks in the courtroom has sparked a discussion among lawyers about professional
dress codes. Shined shoes, closed-toe pumps, crisp shirts and blouses, pants, skirts and jackets are the closet staples of
lawyers. While the business world has gone casual, pitching the tie and welcoming sandals in some cases, the legal profession
has largely remained true to conservative business attire.

The cases involving immigrant children coming to the U.S. from Central America are creating more need for pro bono legal representation
and are highlighting an area of asylum law that the courts struggle to clearly define.

To ensure that your client’s property will go to the beneficiaries of his or her choosing, as opposed to the beneficiaries
that the state chooses, it is imperative that the last will and testament be very specific and provide for as many contingencies
as possible.

Each week longtime friends Bill Satterlee, managing partner at Hoeppner Wagner & Evans LLP in Valparaiso, and Kent Lindquist,
senior judge for the Bankruptcy Court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, share their mutual
love of jazz by recording a two-hour show that airs Sunday nights on the local public radio station.

While the convenience of handheld, portable computers enables employees to peruse email, communicate with clients and review
documents without being tied to the office, the “bring your own device,” or BYOD, trend is creating tensions between
how much access an employer can have to the worker-owned device and how much privacy an employee can expect.

As most good rainmakers know, it is all about networking, and sometimes this means talking to people who are total strangers.
It can be daunting to attend an event that your firm is sponsoring or a conference that your target market attends and be
expected to “go out there and make new friends.”

To help attorneys who are concerned about the intellectual fitness of another lawyer or judge, the American Bar Association
has recently released a cognitive assessment tool. The “Working Paper on Cognitive Impairment and Cognitive Decline”
is a questionnaire designed to give attorneys guidance in determining whether a partner or friend is just having a bad month
or is suffering from something more serious. It also provides recommendations for talking to a colleague who is exhibiting
troublesome behavior.

Lawyers who’ve teamed up to start firms as partnerships say putting their professional names and reputations on the
line together takes mutual trust, respect, a shared vision, and a fair amount of nerve.